Still, if Edwards wants to blame somebody for his defeat, he shouldn't look at the media. He should look at himself. And I mean that in the best sense possible. Edwards' biggest problem may have been that he was too compelling—so compelling that his rivals effectively adopted his agenda. From the beginning, Edwards was positioning himself as the champion of Americans struggling to get ahead financially. And rather than simply offer populist rhetoric, he backed it with a serious, comprehensive set of policies.By the time Clinton and Obama had fleshed out their respective agendas, however, there simply wasn't that much difference among them. Pundits frequently criticized Edwards for his unabashed populism and, it's true, his rhetoric was the most openly confrontational of the three leading Democrats.But in terms of what the three were actually proposing to do, the agendas were virtually identical—not to mention widely popular, if the polls are to be believed. We're all populists now.
And later:
Which brings me to the one thing I'll miss most about Edwards' campaign: His intuitive sense of how to sell policies. On the health care issue, for example, it was Edwards who offered the best rationale for requiring everybody to buy insurance—a controversial measure that Obama, for example, has not endorsed. Echewing the complicated, if valid, policy arguments about adverse selection, he invoked a simple analogy: It's like Social Security. Everybody has to pay in so that everybody can benefit. Edwards was also savvy about taxes. Unlike so many Democrats, he didn't flinch at the accusation that some of his proposed programs would require new spending, leading eventually to more taxes. He would simply say yes, that's right—and they're worth it.
A beautiful, gracious speech. It was deeply fitting, and for me, affecting, for Edwards' final address as a presidential candidate and national politician to focus on the One America, the more decent, more just America that we believe in, and that he's fought to build. Watching him on that stage, there was no artifice to his claim that he's now forced the other candidates to embrace his passions and adopt his causes. Whatever their assurances to him on the phone, John Edwards set the terms of this race, and the contours of their agendas, many months ago.
Also, a fitting anecdote:
And, finally, a word on Elizabeth Edwards. The first time I came to Washington as an adult, I came because she invited me. An avid blog reader, Elizabeth asked a handful of bloggers to come have dinner at their home in Georgetown. I'd just been hired by the Prospect, but wouldn't start for months yet, and so imagined this a good opportunity to visit my new city. I remember standing on their porch, ringing the doorbell only to have John Edwards answer. I remember looking behind him, to the older women with short, spiky grey hair -- Elizabeth, after a round of chemo. I remember John Edwards trying to have us convince her that her hair looked wonderful the way it was, and she needn't color it. I remember the evident bond, and deep affection, their interactions displayed. But more than that, I remember how impressive she was, how quick and articulate and argumentative. It was her, not him, who made the biggest impression on me. He was the politician, but of the two, she was the political thinker, the one who devoured commentary and information, the one who conceived of their campaign as a product of the contemporary progressive moment.
In what must have been an agonizing experience for him and his campaign, he suffered the misfortune that his ideas were so good that others decided to embrace similar ones. Obama and Clinton both seemed determined to move far enough left to deprive Edwards of the oxygen he would need to catch fire. And, in the end, they succeeded. Edwards's hole card was his ideas, but the thing about ideas is you can't stop other people from using the good ones.But if this game of copycat was deadly to Edwards's campaign, it's been a great thing for the country. Most of the policy cats now unleashed into the mainstream can't be put back in the bag. There's no guarantee that anything as ambitious as the Obama or Clinton platforms will actually be enacted - indeed, I'm pretty sure they won't - but there will be an election fought on the highly progressive terrain they outline, and if either prevails they will be committed to the boldest feasible action on these key issues. And so, good for them and good for us. But also, good for John Edwards, the man without whom things would probably look very different.
